


When you dream, do I make the screen?

by amalnahurriyeh



Series: Truth May Vary (Post-Reichenbach series) [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dating, Exes, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 09:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18247094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amalnahurriyeh/pseuds/amalnahurriyeh
Summary: Four times Mary's boyfriend worried about her ex, and one time he didn't.





	When you dream, do I make the screen?

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeyyyyyy, what's up. So, like, it's been a bit busy in my real life, and I've dropped off fannish social media and not responded to comments and other things like that. But I still exist! I still love these characters! I still have stupid silly cracky stories to tell about them! 
> 
> This was written as a treat to myself in the middle of a lot of personal stress, so I hope it serves that function for some of you as well. Unbeta'd - if you catch typos feel free to tell me, though I don't promise I'll get to fixing them! And for everyone who knows me from X-Files fandom, you will recognize my favorite trope, "third party observes the relationships we know really well," is well and truly back.
> 
> Title from the Arkells, "And Then Some," because I'm a Canadian stereotype.

George knew he was fiddling with his tie. It didn’t mean he could stop, mind, but he knew well enough that it made him look nervous.  He really needed her to get here so he could stop. Assuming he’d be able to stop. Oh god, he should just call it off before he made a total and complete arse of himself—  
  
Oh, that was her.  He stood from the bar and held up a hand, tried not to flinch when she saw him and nodded, forced his hands into his pocket so he wouldn’t touch his blasted tie while she wove through the crowded room.  “Mary,” he said, once she was close enough.  
  
“You must be George,” she said, holding out her hand.  
  
“Yes, that’s, um, hello,” he said, and shook it, hoping to Christ it wasn’t sweaty.  
  
She looked him up and down.  “You’re fair shitting yourself, mate. Am I that scary?”  
  
“Um, well. Yes, actually.”    
  
She burst into laughter, her head tipping forward, her lovely glossy hair shaking.  And she smiled at him again.  “Well. Fair cop. Buy me a drink, then.”  
  
They ate tiny Spanish meatballs on toothpicks and bits of squiggly octopus in gochujang and something absurd with kale, decided that the cocktail menu was too obsessed with bitters so just ordered rounds of G&Ts.  “Next time, let’s go somewhere less trendy,” she said, dropping her line peel back in the glass, and his heart beat faster at _next time_.  
  
She pulled out her phone to show him a funny picture she had taken on the tube the other day, and the lock photo was of a kid up a tree. Her profile on the dating site had said she was a single mum, so he decided sticking his neck out was safe enough. “Is that your boy?”  
  
She smiled.  “Yeah, that’s Naz.  He’s seven.  Climbs literally anything.” She unlocked the phone and brought up another photo of him in his school jumper, grinning next to a schoolyard fence.  
  
“He’s adorable,” George said, and pushed his luck.  “Is his dad...in the picture?”  
  
Her smile faded a bit, looked rueful.  “Yeah, his dad’s great.”  She purposefully flicked through the photos. “Wait, this is the one,” she said, and held it out.  
  
George squinted. “Is that...is that a ferret?”  
  
“Right?” Mary said.  
  
***  
  
Mary was in the middle of complaining about some new bollocks from the ministry when her phone chimed.  “Damn, that’s John,” she said, and went fishing for it.  
  
George sipped his pint.  John was the ex, and also the only person Mary’s phone sent messages through from if she put it on do not disturb, as he’d learned when he’d stupidly said something about her phone not having any notifications on it, and how it looked like she lived a more digitally clean life than he did.  His phone was constantly telling him things, and he had no idea how to turn it off.  Maybe she could set it up for him, he was pants at that sort of thing.    
  
Mary groaned.  “Apparently it’s our turn on the snack rota tomorrow.  D’you know, is there a Tesco near here?”  
  
“Sainsbury’s down four streets or so.  I’ll show you,” George said.  The our in reference to her and John was not new, but he supposed it was time to broach it.  “You and John, you seem to manage the co-parenting thing well, then.”  
  
The way she examined him meant she understood what he was trying to figure out, but her tone was still light when she responded.  “Yeah, he’s a great dad.  Kind of a shit husband, but.  We’re better off as friends.  And I’d rather have that than the opposite.”    
  
“Yeah, makes sense,” he said.  “Where’s he live?  I’d imagine carting Naz across half the city would be a pain.”  
  
And now she was the nervous one.  “Well.  Er, you’ll rather think I’m mad.”  
  
“I’m a psychologist,” he said.  “I know everybody’s mad, don’t I.”    
  
She laughed.  “We, um.  We own a building together.  An old Victorian conversion, two flats.  He’s up, I’m down, Naz’s bedroom is the attic.”  
  
He blinked for a moment.   “Oh.  That’s…that’s bloody brilliant, actually.”  
  
The tension in her shoulders disappeared and she sank back into her chair.  “Right? Saves so much bullshit.  And, again, we don’t hate each other, so.”  She glanced at her phone for the time.  “8:30.  My turn to get the bill, yeah?  And then you can help me pick out what two dozen year threes will eat tomorrow.”  
  
“I’d love to,” he said, and meant it.    
  
***  
  
Oh, he was early, and this should not be making him nervous but it was, of course.  George hovered in front of the door to 221 Baker Street, rain dripping down the back of his neck, and wondered whether to ring the bell or not.  His first time to Mary’s house, and here he was, nervous as a schoolboy.  (It was a nice house.  Too nice for the likes of him?  Oh, Christ, get it together, Jeffords.)  
  
His phone rang in his pocket, and he fumbled for it.  “Hello?”  
  
“George?  It’s Mary.”  
  
“Hi, I’m just outside,” he said, shaking his hands to get the water off.  
  
“Oh, shit,” she said.  “Well, that’s a problem, because I’m still in the bloody office.  Got caught up with something, just headed to the tube now.”  
  
“That’s—that’s no problem,” he said, ducking away from a splash of water from a cab pulling up in front of the house, backing into the doorway.  “I’ll just—there’s a cafe, I’ll grab a coffee—“  
  
“I’m so sorry,” she said.  “This report is absolutely a fucker.  I’ll be able to get home and get changed in time for the show, it’s just—“  
  
The tall man who had gotten out of the cab was standing at the foot of the stairs and looking up at George with his eyes narrowed.  “You’re standing on my steps.”  
  
“Um, yeah, no worries, I’ll see you when you get here?” George said to Mary, and hung up.  He realized with a crash that this must be the mysterious ex, this must be John, and oh god, he was a wet dog on the stoop and was about to die. “Er, yeah,” he said, not knowing what to say.  “Um, I’m George.  Mary’s…”  Did he say friend?  Boyfriend?  Not partner yet, it was only four months, but still it was neutral and—oh god, he was staring, what the hell should he say.    
  
John examined him closely for a minute, and then pulled himself up taller.  He walked up the stairs, and George fumbled out of the way to let him unlock the door, still silent.  He slid through the doorway like a ghost, and then turn around and squinted at George.  “Come.”  
  
And apparently he was invited in, now.  John hung his massive wool greatcoat (dripping all over the floor) in the front hall, on a peg next to a leather jacket, Mary’s spare windbreaker (the one she’d worn on their hiking trip last month) and what must have been Naz’s winter coat.  George just stood there dripping.  John walked to the stairs up to the first floor, glanced back, and rolled his eyes.  “Hang your coat.  I’ll make tea.”  
  
Scrambling to follow, George threw his coat over Mary’s and shook himself off so he wouldn’t drip too much as he followed John up the stairs.  The first floor flat was wallpapered in dark colours, and all the Victorian aesthetic of the place seemed to be intact, but with the addition of some weird taxidermy on the mantle.  “It’s a nice place you’ve got,” George said, trying to strike up conversation, as John turned on the fireplace and then went into the small kitchen.  “Lovely, um.”  He gestured to a framed bat skeleton hanging on the wall.  “Decor.”  
  
John examined him so piercingly that George half felt himself about to melt away, and then turned back to the kettle and tea-tray.  The look had everything in common with how Mary looked at him sometimes, and that, precisely was it, was exactly what he had been not so subtly worrying about for six months: here was this gorgeous man, six feet tall if he was an inch, cheekbones like a supermodel and hair like a Greek god and eyes that sliced through you and an exact match to Mary, with her brilliance and her edges and the beauty that took his breath away, and George a nebbishy little nobody in a cardigan.  What the hell were they even doing together?  If this was Mary’s past, what on earth was he doing imagining he was her future?  He tried to remind himself that this was the marriage that didn’t work—that like didn’t always fit like—but next to that, what the hell did he have to offer?  
  
John appeared in front of him with a teacup perched on a saucer.  “Oh, ta,” George said.  “Um, I take—“  
  
“Milk, no sugar.”  
  
George blinked.  “Yes, actually.”  
  
“Mmm.”  John took out his phone, sent a text, and dropped it on the table next to George before gliding back to the kitchen.  He glanced down to see it.  “I have something of yours,” he’d texted to Mary.  The screen went black before he could snoop anymore.  
  
He didn’t know what to say, so stood there, drinking his tea, being stared at from across the room by John who was also drinking his tea.  If it was possible to literally melt through the floor from a stare, then George was going to see if he could do it, because it would be preferable to this.  
  
Downstairs, the door opened.  “George?” came Mary’s voice.  
  
“Up here,” he called, thanking everything he could think of that he was about to be rescued.    
  
Mary stomped up, shaking more water out of her hair.  “Ugh, it’s pissing down out there.  I’m so sorry you got stuck in that.”  She came over and kissed him on the cheek, which made him feel briefly better.  Then she glanced at John, who turned to put down his teacup and pick up what must be hers, which made him feel slightly less.  
  
“No, it’s fine.”  He smiled and made enthusiastic eyebrows in John’s direction.  “John was nice enough to let me in, fix me a cuppa.”    
  
Mary leaned back in what looked like confusion, looked at John approaching—and burst into laughter.  The deepest kind, folding over, snorting in between breaths.  John stood there with the teacup balanced in his enormous hands, a sardonic smirk curling his lips. Mary stood up and wiped her eyes.  “Oh, shit.  You think this is John?”  
  
George didn’t know what to say to that.    
  
“Oh, Christ no,” she said, still giggling, taking the cup from—not John.  “I’m not a lunatic.”  
  
“I’m the other woman,” the man said primly, and glided away, arms behind his back, which set Mary off again.    
  
George squinted in confusion, and then the penny dropped.  “Oh.”  _Oh._    
  
Mary rubbed his arm sympathetically.  Not-John picked up a picture off the mantlepiece with one hand and his tea with the other, and carried it back over to hand to George.  He looked down.  In the picture, a nebbishy little man in a cardigan was holding a toddler Naz in front of the Eiffel Tower.  “Oh,” he said, and suddenly felt much better about himself.    
  
Mary snorted again, and then looked over at Not-John.  “Well?  Does he pass?”  
  
Not-John stared him up and down again, and George stood a little taller to present himself.  Not-John nodded.  “Preliminarily.”  
  
“Oh, I’ll take that as a great endorsement from his majesty,” she said, and curled her arm in George’s.  “Come on,” she said to him.  “I’ll get changed, and we can pop out for drinks beforehand, yeah?”  
  
“Absolutely,” he said.  “Nice meeting you,” he said to Not-John.  
  
Not-John stared at him all the way down the stairs.  Bit creepy, that.    
  
***  
  
The film was almost over, and Mary was dozing on his shoulder.  George guessed he should probably wake her up, move her to bed—her neck went all pear-shaped if she slept on the couch, he’d learned that the first time he’d let her nod off while marking up a report.  She didn’t stay over every day she didn’t have Naz, and he’d never stayed over at hers, but he was starting to learn her rhythms, starting to know the woman behind the phenomenon, and that was a pleasure he hadn’t known before, something deep and abiding.    
  
He was spared the choice of how to wake her when her phone went off.  She stirred.  “What’s that?”  
  
“Your phone,” he said.  “Let me silence it.”  
  
“No, it’s set for just John, has to be important,” she said, reaching for the phone.  She ran a hand over her face and picked it up.  “John?  What is it?”  She was leaning forward, still half asleep, but then shot up.  “Wait, what?”  George could feel the tension spike through her, and his adrenaline shot up in response.  “When?  How—oh my god,” and her voice broke, tears obvious behind it.  He rested one hand lightly on her back.  “OK.  Yes, I see.  Did she—did she say what hospital?”  She took a shaky breath.  “Yeah, that’s—I’m in my pyjamas, I have to—“ She took a long breath.  “George is here, he can take me.  No, it’s fine.  Yeah.  Thanks.  Yeah.”  She hung up, and then doubled over, pressing her face into her knees, and sobbed once, long and hard.  
  
George leaned over closer to her.  “Love?”    
  
She shook for a moment, and then sat up.  “My mum had a stroke.  They couldn’t get through, my sister called John.”    
  
“Oh, no,” George said, and pulled her in.    
  
She leaned into him for a moment, and then sat up.  “She’s at UCH.  I need to—I don’t know, I need to go.”  
  
“Let me get an Uber, it’ll be faster out here,” he said.    
  
“My clothes—“  
  
“They’ve seen worse,” he said, phone in one hand calling the car, the other tight on her back.  “Come on, you’ll want your coat.”  
  
He guided her to her shoes, to her coat, threw both their spare chargers in his coat pocket.  “Let’s go,” he said, and guided her through the door and down to the street.  
  
***  
  
There was Christmas music in the background, mulled cider in cups on the table, and Mary slouched beneath him on the sofa, and George thought it was just about perfect.  Her flat was warm and cozy, and he thought that he would never leave this moment if he had any option.  “We should probably eat some Christmas dinner at some point,” he said.  
  
“Oh, bollocks to that,” she said.  “Let’s just eat more cheese.”  
  
“Yeah, okay,” he said, and closed his eyes.  “You don’t mind Naz not being here for Christmas?”  
  
“Nah, it’s fine,” she said, running her fingers through his hair.  “I saw him this morning for a little, while you were at your brother’s.  Anyway, my family makes a big deal of Orthodox Christmas, so I get him for that.”  She sighed.  “Be harder without Mum.”  He kissed her shoulder where he lay, and she curled in closer.    
  
“Did John take him to his family?”  
  
“Nah, his sister’s an obnoxious drunk in Scotland and he’s learned not to be a martyr, sometimes.  New brother-in-law’s house.”  The front door opened.  “And that’s them back now.”  She patted George, and he took the hint and sat up away from her before Naz opened the door.  “There’s my love.  How was dinner at Mycroft’s?”  
  
“Four different puddings,” Naz said, “and he bought me a Switch.”  
  
“Well, that’s something,” Mary said, holding out her arms as he came over to hug her.    
  
“Dad says I can’t have any violent games, though.  Is Splatoon violent?”  Naz straightens up.  “Hey, George.”  
  
“Happy Christmas, Naz,” George said.  He’d never wanted kids, but Naz is such a part of Mary.   He thinks he might want a step-kid, now, is all.  “I didn’t get you a Switch, but there’s something for you over on the table, if you want to get it.”  
  
“Because that’s really what we need, is more gifts,” said a warm voice George has never heard before from the door.  
  
“It’s Christmas.  Spoiling children is literally the point,” argued the voice of Not-John, whose name George had never actually learned.  
  
The two men came to stand in the doorway, John in a garish Christmas jumper and Not-John apparently conceding the season enough to wear a forest green shirt.  “Honestly, Sherlock,” said John, leaning into the other man.  “There is such a thing as moderation.”  
  
“Hmm, sounds like bollocks,” he said.    
  
“Swear jar,” said Naz, John, and Mary simultaneously.    
  
George was making to stand up and introduce himself to John, but was thinking—what had John said the other man’s name was?  He looked over at him—he looked familiar, and something about this whole thing—  
  
“Wait,” he said suddenly, without really anticipating it.  “You’re Sherlock Holmes.”  
  
There was utter silence for a moment.  And then John glanced over at Mary, and they both burst out laughing at the same time, John covering his eyes with his hand and Mary her mouth.  Sherlock—Christ, the great detective Sherlock Holmes—rolled his eyes at all of them.  
  
“What’s the big deal?” asked Naz, which made Mary and John laugh harder.    
  
“I’m famous,” said Sherlock.  
  
“No you’re not,” Naz said dismissively.  “Thank you, George, for the books.”  
  
“Oh at least that’s reasonable,” John said, wiping his eyes.  He smiled and crossed the room to George, and held out his hand.  “John Watson.  Pleasure to meet you.”  
  
“George Jeffords.  The same, obviously,” he said, and shook.  
  
“Right,” said Mary.  “Is four puddings too much, or shall I get out the Japanese Christmas cake and some coffee?”  
  
“Cake, please!” Naz sing-songed.    
  
“Right, Sherlock, you come help,” Mary said, pushing herself up from the couch, gesturing towards the kitchen.    
  
John turned to George and smiled.  “Welcome to the madness.”  
  
“Thanks,” George said, and smiled back.  “I rather like it.”


End file.
